Page:The Poems and Prose remains of Arthur Hugh Clough, volume 2 (1869).djvu/47

And the odour unto stench.
Let alone and leave to bloom;
Pass aside, nor make to die,
—In the woodland, on the mountain,
Thou art mine, and I am thine.

So I passed.—Amid the uplands,
In the forests, on whose skirts
Pace unstartled, feed unfearing
Do the roe-deer and the red,
While I hungered, while I thirsted,
While the night was deepest dark,
Who was I, that thou should’st meet me?
Who was I, thou didst not pass?
Who was I, that I should say to thee
Thou art mine, and I am thine?

To the air from whence thou camest
Thou returnest, thou art gone;
Self-created, discreated,
Re-created, ever fresh,
Ever young!——
As a lake its mirrored mountains
At a moment, unregretting,
Unresisting, unreclaiming,
Without preface, without question,
On the silent shifting levels
Lets depart,
Shows, effaces and replaces!
For what is, anon is not;
What has been, again ’s to be;
Ever new and ever young
Thou art mine, and I am thine.